Glee Hotel in Nairobi which is owned by businesswoman Mary Wambui (inset).
Mary Wambui Mungai, the businesswoman linked to the presidential campaigns of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, is battling a planned auction of her luxury Glee Hotel after defaulting on multiple loans totalling Sh8.267 billion.
Ms Wambui, who is also the board chairperson of the Athi Water Works Development Agency, has alongside Glee Hotel, sued Equity Bank in an attempt to block a planned February 5 auction of the hotel.
The court battle has also lifted the lid on some of Ms Wambui’s investments in hospitality, real estate and aviation, while revisiting her publicly-known dabbling in public procurement.
Glee Hotel, the 211-room hotel along the Northern Bypass, is the first plaintiff in the suit, while Ms Wambui is the second. The plaintiffs are seeking to block the auction of the hotel, which a valuation sought by Equity Bank shows is worth Sh9.5 billion in the open market.
The land value is placed at Sh1 billion, buildings at Sh6.5 billion, and fixtures and fittings at Sh2 billion.
The valuation adds that the hotel has an insurance value of Sh8.5 billion, but that it could fetch approximately Sh5.625 billion or 59 per cent of its actual value in a forced sale, such as an auction.
Among the assets charged as security are land parcels in Nairobi (Runda, Westlands and South B), Kiambu (Ruiru, Thindigua and Ruaka) and Kajiado (Ongata Rongai). Her companies also issued guarantees, as did Ms Wambui and her daughters, Purity Njoki and Evelyn Nyambura Mungai.
The loans were issued over multiple years since 2020.
Ms Wambui, in her court filings, blames the freezing of bank accounts operated by her multiple companies and their inability to access credit for the predicament.
She explains that the cash crunch was fuelled by a government move to freeze payments for rice that she supplied to the Kenya National Trading Corporation (KNTC) between 2022 and 2023.
The pay freeze affected several contractors who were hired to supply the corporation with rice, beans, cooking oil and fertiliser.
Ms Wambui’s Purma Holdings, (Sh2.5 billion), Charma Holdings (Sh1.95 billion), Enterprise Supplies Ltd (Sh1.2 billion) and Evertec General Trading Company (Sh1.2 billion) were among the big winners when KNTC hired contractors to supply the items with the intention of lowering commodity prices in Kenya.
Those same firms have now caused trouble in Ms Wambui’s business paradise, as court papers show they played a big role in paying Equity Bank Sh2.555 billion to offset multiple loans issued to her different firms.
Accounts freeze
The accounts freeze followed investigations by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations into the KNTC contracts. Former KNTC boss Pamela Mutua was charged in connection with irregular award of the contracts. Neither the contracted firms nor their officials were charged.
Businesswoman Mary Wambui Mungai.
Equity Bank, in its response to the case, says it has bent over backwards to accommodate Ms Wambui and her firms, yet neither payment nor an acceptable proposal has been placed on the negotiating table since the defaults started in February, 2025.
Ms Wambui and her firms, the bank says in court papers, initially said they had an arrangement with Credit Bank to take over the Equity Bank loans that fell through. She then, in November, told Equity Bank that KCB Bank was in the process of taking over the debt.
But Equity Bank now says that based on the happenings in the Credit Bank dealings, there is no guarantee that KCB Bank will make an acceptable offer after analysing Ms Wambui’s portfolio.
Equity Bank has already declined an offer for KCB to pay it Sh7 billion to take over the loans issued to Ms Wambui’s firms, and holds that the rejection was well within its rights.
“An offer to pay only part of the amount secured by the charges is not equivalent to exercising the equity of redemption and the rejection of a partial settlement offer does not amount to clogging the plaintiffs’ right to redeem the properties,” Equity Bank says.
The lender further states that issuance of statutory notices to Ms Wambui and her firms triggered a 40-day window for the debt to be repaid, failing which it would be free to start the auction process.
The bank adds that after the 40-day window lapsed, it still held back on the auction as talks were ongoing, but made it clear that any deal had to be concluded before the year lapsed.
On November 19, 2025 Ms Wambui and Purma Holdings had informed Equity Bank that they were in talks with KCB Bank for a takeover of the loans, which had a total balance of over Sh8.2 billion at the time.
View of the entrance to Glee Hotel, Northern bypass Nairobi County on March 13, 2025.
Through her lawyers, Ms Wambui told the lender that her firms were unable to secure credit to execute other contracts, which would have availed enough funds for the loan repayment. She claimed that Equity Bank’s recall of the Sh8.2 billion loan was among the reasons the firms were unable to secure credit.
“The chairperson of Glee Hotel Ltd confirmed that she is unable to pay the money owed ... because all her businesses were constrained to access credit facilities to actualise some of the contracts secured and this hindered the companies to generate sufficient revenues to service the loans. This happened when the payment for rice was delayed by government and the bank required her to pay all (the loan balance) at once,” Ms Wambui, through her lawyers, said in the letter to Equity Bank.
She added that KCB Bank had offered to buy the loans for Sh7 billion, or 85 per cent of the amounts owed. This meant that Equity Bank would take a Sh1.23 billion haircut.
Equity Bank declined on November 25, and instead proposed that Ms Wambui and her firms pay Sh7.5 billion, and then provide a clear payment plan for the Sh754 million balance, including the source of funds.
The following day, Ms Wambui made another haircut request to the lender through her lawyers, stating that her firms had faithfully and consistently paid the first Sh2.555 billion, and that her proposal could be facilitated by a waiver of interest and penalties.
It was then that she revealed the accounts freeze as one of the reasons for cash flow problems in her business empire.
“The plaintiffs duly communicated the following counter-proposal… We are instructed that the premature recall of the facilities, the freezing of operating accounts, and the consequential inability of the group to access working capital significantly impeded their normal operational and credit cycles,” Ms Wambui says in her court papers.
Equity Bank says Ms Wambui had initially offered to pay Sh5 billion in full settlement, and requested it to take a haircut of more than Sh3 billion. She later upped the offer to Sh7 billion.
“…As no acceptable proposal had been made, the defendant (Equity Bank) instructed Philips International Auctioneers to serve the 45 days’ notice to the plaintiffs. In order to comply with its obligation under section 97 of the Land Act, the defendant engaged COG Consultants to undertake a valuation of Land Reference Numbers 5989/200 and 5989/215 (Glee Hotel),” Equity Bank legal manager Kariuki King’ori says in court papers.
The lender adds that the final letter from Ms Wambui’s camp on November 26, 2025 was not marked “without prejudice” – a term used in correspondence to block anything said or written from being used against the author or speaker when a dispute goes to court – hence there is legal admission of the debts owed.
Businesswoman Mary Wambui.
“I believe that the letter dated 26th November 2025 from the plaintiff’s advocates, which was not marked without prejudice, is an express admission of the debt and the fact that the defendant (Equity Bank) had met the requirements to exercise its power of sale,” Mr King’ori states.
Criticised
Ms Wambui has criticised Equity Bank for targeting the principal borrower’s security – Glee Hotel – for auction and ignoring assets surrendered by guarantors like Purma Holdings, Charma Holdings, Albatross Aviation and other firms.
That stand is converse to the one taken by brothers Ngengi and Kung’u Muigai, who, in their more than 30-years fight with KCB Bank over loan recovery, faulted the lender for auctioning land surrendered by a guarantor as security and ignoring the assets used by the principal borrower.
The Muigai brothers’ fight saw the National Assembly ponder amending the Banking Act to compel lenders to first exhaust the auction of a principal borrower’s assets before descending on guarantors.
The law was, however, never passed, leaving the debate on whose assets, between borrower and guarantor, should go under the auctioneer’s hammer first.
Ms Wambui has reignited that debate, as she claims that Equity Bank targeting Glee Hotel first is a malicious move that could not only lead to loss of the asset, but also cause reputational damage.
She adds that if advertisement of the auction, and its actual forceful sale proceed, the talks with KCB Bank could collapse, as could partnerships with third parties like tour operators and foreign investors.
The bank maintains it is at liberty to choose which property to auction among those surrendered as security.
“The defendant is entitled to elect the security it intends to realise to recover an outstanding debt and this is not subject to the consent of the plaintiffs,” Equity Bank says.
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